I can’t help notice that Paxton is four lanes and has a raised curb median that was typical of four lane highways in PA decades ago. I assume this part of Paxton was once US 322 before the current Eisenhower interchange got built.
Yes, it was. To the east, it fed directly into the current 322 alignment where Paxton Street turns north as Rupp Hill Road (note: Google Maps' name labels are wrong here past the turn). Back then, all of 322 heading over to Hummelstown was like that section of Paxton.
To the west, it originally fed directly into the rest of Paxton Street, which carried 322 into Harrisburg. It had a signalized intersection with Eisenhower Blvd, which continued north from the intersection as the same four-lane expressway it is now and fed seamlessly into what's now I-83 before ending at US 22. This is why that weird little expressway section of Eisenhower Blvd exists, built to more or less the same standards as the rest of I-83 was to the north prior to its reconstruction.
You can see all of this in the various years of Historic Aerials' imagery.
I remember before the Jersey Barrier median on US 322 east of the Eisenhower exchange, the median was, as I remember it, like that part of Paxton. We used to stay at the hotel on PA 441 and go to Hersheypark in the 70s and 80s. There were only two stoplights between I-83 and PA 39, and those two still today are the original span wire that PennDOT has been phasing out for decades.
I remember outside of Philly span wires were very common in PA. In SE PA it was either ground mounts or mast arms. I believe the district or region that handles all of SE PA was influenced by NJ, that never too was gung ho on span wires except Burlington County and parts of Ocean County and here and there in municipalities throughs the Garden State in those times.
I also remember when US 22 was signal less east of Paxtonia before 1980 when the PA 39 intersection got signalized, and of course now, there are a few signals all the way to I-78. In addition from PA 39 eastward the speed limit was 55 on US 22 as well. Even through Fredericksburg it was 55. I was shocked that it was 40 mph there in 2000, but informed here on the forum it was raised since.
I also figured out long before cybernet that the part of US 22 that is named Allentown Blvd. in Dauphin County is a realigned US 22 as that the original US Route followed todays Jonestown Road east of the split in Paxtonia. The way Allentown Blvd looks is how all of US 22 looked between Exit 8 on I-78 and PA 100 in Fogelsville. The birth of I-78 upgraded US 22 to full freeway and removed many intersections along it and forced Roadside America to sever its entrances from US 22 ( as my dad used to tell me that attraction was directly on US 22 with driveways) for its own frontage road.
That explains why the substandard I-78 east of Hamburg due to it not being built from scratch.
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Topic: Pennsylvania (Read 581360 times)